d villages which
have been lately taken in mortgage from the proprietors, and in lease
from Government, by Monowur-od Dowlah, the nephew and heir of the
late Hakeem Mehndee. He is inviting and locating in these villages
many cultivators of the best classes; and they will all soon be in a
fine state of tillage. No soil can be finer, and no acre of it is
incapable of bearing fine crops. The old proprietors and lessees, to
whom he had lent money on mortgage, have persuaded him to foreclose,
that they may come under so substantial and kind a landholder. They
prefer holding the sub-lease under such a man, to holding the lease
directly under Government, subject to the jurisdiction of the Nazim.
Monowur-od Dowlah pays forty thousand rupees a-year for the whole to
Government, and has had the whole transferred to the Huzoor Tuhseel.

The Nazim of Khyrabad rode by my side during this morning's march,
and at my request he described the mutiny which took place in two of
the regiments that attended him in the siege of Bhitolee, just before
I crossed the Ghagra at Byramghat. These were the Futteh Aesh, and
the Wuzeeree. Their commandants are Allee Hoseyn, a creature of one
of the singers, Kootab Allee; and Mahommed Akhbur, a creature of the
minister's. They were earnestly urged by the minister and Nazim to
join their regiments for the short time they would be on this
important service, but in vain; nothing could induce them to quit the
Court. All the corps mentioned above, as attending the Nazim, were
present, and the siege had begun when, on the 17th of November, some
shopkeepers in camp, having been robbed during the night by some
thieves, shut up their shops, and prepared to leave the camp in a
body. The siege could not go on if the traders all left the place;
and he sent a messenger to call the principal men that he might talk
to them. They refused to move, and the messenger, finding that they
were ready to set out, seized one of them by the waist-hand, and when
he resisted, struck him on the head with a stick, and said he would
make him go to his master. The man called out to some sipahees of the
Wuzeeree regiment, who were near, to rescue him. They did so: the
messenger struggled to hold his grasp, but was dragged off and
beaten. He returned the blows; the sipahees drew their swords: he
seized one of the swords and ran off towards his master's tent,
waiving it over his head, to defend himself, followed by some of the
sipahees.